So, today I woke up at my usual morning time (midnight), and grabbed a cigarette, turn on my laptop, grunted and scratched my back, ho hum. I check my email box first, every day, to read and reply to friends or family. But today, I got this urgent email from a publishing company with the title of my book, True Shadows, in it's subject header. Of course, I thought this was a mailing bot or something, but opened it up to read what this bot had to say.

It wasn't a bot... it was a real person who noticed my book within the Library Of Congress, since I got it copyrighted months ago. The email was exciting, with phases like, "we want to market and promote your book!", "Send us your manuscript in PDF form, right away, so we can draw up contracts!", "We really think your book will be a good addition to our publishing house!". I blinked for several seconds, my jaw hitting the keyboard, and a voice screaming in my head, "IS THIS REAL OR AM I STILL DREAMING???"
Hey, it's not so far fetched that a book can be picked up by a publishing house, after being self-published first. It happened to "50 Shades Of Grey" and that's vampire porn. I happen to believe that my book is way better than vampire porn. ;^_^
But really, was this happening to ME??? That would be a huge change of luck to my life, like hitting the lottery.

So, I ran from my room, huge smiles and crazy hair, into my mother's room to shriek about this new stroke of luck... but she was asleep and I didn't want to wake her, so I ran back into my room like a crazy person. I thought about posting a status on Facebook, a shout into the silence, "Hey, a publishing house wants my book!!!" But instead noticed a message from my sister, letting me know that she hasn't gotten her phone charger from Amazon yet, so she can't call me today. So (thankfully) I shouted the good news to her instead of a facebook status!

But then my cynical mind and instincts kicked in. "You better look into this publishing company on Google, before you break out the champagne. Your luck is NOT this good." Sure enough, it isn't.... >_>

The publishing company is another self-publishing company, not unlike Amazon, but worse than Amazon (a nightmare really). This self-publishing company charge $6,000 to $10,000 to publish your book! Amazon charges 20% of your sales. The money made with this horrid publishing is less than half of what they charge in high priced fees, that is if you're lucky. They seem to troll the Library Of Congress for new suckers like me, also advertise in very prominent writer's magazine or papers, including the New Yorker to give the image that they're legit. And once they've got a person excited and signing a contract, the unwitting author is sacked with a bill of $6,000 or more, making anywhere between a couple hundred or a few thousand from the actual sales. ;u_u

So, I had to tell my sister to put away the confetti and never mind. But my sister, always the "look on the bright side" person, pointed out that if a scam/spam company can find me so easily so could a legit publishing house. Maybe, someday. ^_^

Edit: Oh, and the hour and half "wasted" was advertising my book on a real legit site called "Goodreads". I had to create a profile and everything, upload my cover pic and one chapter...